A question about Elance: Is anyone familiar with the system?

4 replies
Hi,
I'm using Elance right now for some kind of outsourcing job.

I actually need more than one worker for my specific job.
So, I want to hire more than one, but it seems you cannot "award" more than one proposal. And as soon as you chose someone, the job offer closes, right?

So the idea I came up with is to individually send the same job offer(but new one) as a private offer to someone who geve me the proposal and ask him/her to bid there again and I'll take him/her proposal there.

That way I can keep the bidding open but start working with that person.

But is it OK/allowed to do that?
Is there a better way to chose more than one bidder?

Rentacoder has the feature to chose more than one so I kind of expected there was a similar feature on Elance, but I couldn't find it.

I know I can ask Elance directly but it is something happening right now so I wanted your advice.

IF anyone know anything about this please let me know.
#elance #familiar #question #system
  • Profile picture of the author Kay King
    But is it OK/allowed to do that?
    Is there a better way to chose more than one bidder
    Yes, you can do that, come to an agreement with them and then list the job with the description "as agreed". The alternative is posting the job several times and some buyers do that.

    I think the easiest way is to post once, choose the bidders you want and then contact them by message to reach agreement and then post each job quickly so they can accept.

    kay
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    • Profile picture of the author telesto
      I have selected multiple winning proposals for one job on Elance several times. I should note that all of these jobs were lump sum proposals, so I don't know if it works the same way for hourly jobs or not.

      I just selected the first winning bid and went through the process of creating milestone payments, etc for that provider. After the first job was created, I went back to the proposals page and selected another provider and went through the same process. Just repeat the process as for as many providers as you want.

      I like this method as opposed to setting up multiple jobs because the titles within Elance are then the same for all of the providers.

      Hope this helps!
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  • Profile picture of the author ikuret75
    Thanks guys for your replies!
    Thanks telesto, it is the answer!
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    • Profile picture of the author Kay King
      Great answer - I was seeing the result from a provider's point of view - and what Telesto describes would have been easier for those buyers.

      kay
      Signature
      Saving one dog will not change the world - but the world changes forever for that one dog
      ***
      Sometimes I just want someone to hug me and say...
      "It's going to be OK - here's a horse and two million dollars."
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